All That Matters
by CarmineDuvale
Summary: It's the aftermath of the War and everything is not fine. Faced with the possibility of Voldemort's resurrection, they are forced to bring back to life a lesser evil. That lesser evil happens to be Rabastan Lestrange.


_\- I'm the king of everything and oh, my tongue is a weapon -_

* * *

It happens in the aftermath of the War, so soon the dust doesn't even settle and tears don't even get to dry.

It happens because it happens, because tragedy never strikes alone, because when there's a hurricane, there's also an eye and that glimpse of calm and quiet, that middle of the whirlpool, there's where you die in the end.

 _(they don't die. they are just deconstructed piece by piece and reconstructed with their molecules turned over)_

They can't bury him.

There are heroes in those grounds, the earth richer for their valiance, the waters wetter for their blood, there are people who have fought the good fight decomposing, with dreams seeping out of bodies like life out of wounds, and they won't be disrespect like that.

Tom Riddle shall burn instead. Except he doesn't.

It may be presumed that's when it started.

…

 _(bellatrix lestrange – insanity dripping off the walls of her mind like water on a freefall)_

…

 **2 years later**

It's never truly ended but you could say it begins again with some light reading like things always tend to do around Hermione Granger.

They shouldn't this time. There is no stone in the basement, no snake in the pipes, no best friend bound to a magical contract by the unquestioned wisdom of a gigantic wine cup. There is no War, at least not when she's awake, at least not when she's driven, and focused, and alert, and things should be easy this time around, they should.

They aren't.

What is it's a musty, musty book, so dark it almost has veins pulsing under her hands in repulsion at the touch, so repugnant it makes her want to rip it page by page just to see if she would hear the words shriek. The type of book that should have been tossed into flames with a good riddance thrown into its wake and it hadn't. _Sanguinem Sanctus_. The kind of book that would contain a curse, would _be_ a curse wrapped in flimsy leather.

That's how she finally understands what has happened.

…

 _(antonin dolohov – cruelty walking around with dead eyes. human wrapped in tragedy. vortex. mistake)_

...

"He'll wake," she tells Harry. "He bound his life force to that of his inner circle, a catch hidden amidst an even exchange, a trap, and now that they're all dead by unnatural causes, all that life force will slip back into him and corrode in there and he'll wake. No Horcruxes needed. Just death. A last precaution, shall it all fail."

The Ministry doesn't want to believe them but there is not much not to be believed. Facts don't lie, neither does the body refusing to decay in a room somewhere deep in the Department of Mysteries, and the magic? – the magic just exists. It won't answer. It won't bend.

And you don't demand from it.

You're blessed. And blessings can be stripped away as easily as given.

"It won't be today," she reassures. "It won't be tomorrow, or next week, or next month. But it'll happen. An even exchange. Power versus time. Magic knows. Magic waits. In a year, or two, or ten, he'll wake. Because we triggered it when we killed them all."

And that can't be unmade.

…

 _(rodolphus lestrange – picking flowers in his mind to plant in his enemies' insides)_

...

Apparently, it can.

…

 _(lucius malfoy – sanctimonia vincet semper. veni, vidi, non vici)_

…

They deem him the lesser of many evils but actors like that, they rarely play their part the way you'd expect them.

When they summon Rabastan from beyond the veil, with pentagrams on the walls and fires to rebirth him, he comes young and lean and unblemished, all sanity, all charm. An heir wearing his arrogance on his shoulders like a cloak, hiding behind flawless skin a moral compass so seriously ambiguous Hermione would be surprised if even north was always northern in his presence.

And he can _see._ She catches the moment when he understands, that this is _Dark_ , and _desperate,_ and eminently _usable._

His smile spreads on his lips slowly, so slowly, as if it needs to slither on his face from way inside his mind, as if his muscles have to remember how to coil around a loop.

…

 _(rabastan lestrange – cobra)_

…

They panic. They panic and shuffle forward, Aurors with wands drawn, and Unspeakables with time turners in their hands, and the cabala.

Hermione finds the cabala particularly distasteful.

Lestrange seems casually amused, in that high-class way aristocrats _own_ , as if, yes, this trick of the commoners is quite interesting, good fun, enjoyable even, but he's seen better from the better, people mere mortals have never breathed against, and he's bored, so bored beneath it all he might actually start picking at his nails and is all so awfully hilarious she might choke on a laugh if she's not careful.

She's dizzy, really, feels far removed from the earth, though here she is, in this room, with this man they _brought back from the dead,_ and he's smiling widely now as if they're all Eve and he the serpent and don't they all already know how this story ends?

Rabastan finds the only chair in the room and slouches in it, _slouches_ , full of arrogance, emanating a confidence that burns them all like ultra-violets.

"I suspect," he says, "this little misadventure here is definitely illegal." He looks around, takes them all in, the dirty wizards in traditional cloth, the old ways etched on their faces like wrinkles, the ceremonial blood still on their hands, and he settles even more comfortably. "The Ancient Coven is present? Wonderful!" The glint in his eyes is heavy as lead. " _Highly_ illegal, then."

"What's he doing?" Ron hisses at Hermione and she rubs her temple trying to soften the pounding headache that seems to have permanently taken residence in the back of her mind.

"Isn't it obvious?" It apparently isn't and she sighs. "He's readjusting the balance of power. We're in a room he knows, with a group of people" – she gestures contemptuously towards the ragged, leathery skin wizards – "whose distastefulness he's obviously familiar with, in the presence of other people who clearly represent the power and he is taking back the reigns. Reminds us what our place truly is."

Ron sputters. " _Our place?_ What about _his place_?"

There's a chuckle. It's amused and rich and _malevolent to the core._ "I suspect the lady is trying to make you understand the public isn't kin on resurrection, Mr Weasley." Ron pivots, shocked, ready to demand how this man knows his name just to be met with a shrug. "No airy-fairy stuff, raising the dead. I have nothing against it myself but the largest part of the population is tragically limited. That's it if I _was_ dead. Was I?" The question is directed at Hermione, who nods tiredly. His lips hang for the tiniest of moments in a pout that says _very unpleasant business death, never really thought it'll happen._

"Well, then." He brightens. "To be raised from the dead is not as much in bad taste as to do the raising. I'll be fine. You though," he points at the Head of the Wizengamot, who looks like he passed the stage where he prayed to be swallowed by the earth five minutes ago. "You look like you're in need of a savior. I'm a generous man. I agree it'll have to be our little secret. I'll even make you a vow."

Everyone in the room shuffles. It's a shuffle that says _you don't trade secrets with the devil, he'll just plant them and grow tripled interest._ Rabastan throws a beatific smile in their direction.

"Don't worry, I'm merely a cliché. Us barely crawling, brought back to life convicts always seem to want power."

He doesn't look like he's barely crawling. He looks like a lord. He regards them like a master.

…

 _Rabastan Lestrange – King_

…

They remember he's a Death Eater in the end, when they are no longer under the sweeping flourish of his words, when they are no longer under the sharp cynicism of his gaze, but what does it matter anymore?

He's unmarked, he's unchanged, the magic shaped him into the shape he was at his core, the shape of charming cruelty and opportunism, the shape of powerful discordance, and that shape belongs to no one anymore.

He was meant to be their wild card, he was meant to be the ace up their sleeves, and he is not, he is the dog biting the hand that's feeding him and doesn't feel bad in doing so.

Rabastan Lestrange doesn't remember a lot but he remembers having a master.

 _Never again,_ he vows.

…

He gets properties back and vaults full of galleons and _life_ and Hermione thinks _This is it, this is the last we hear of him_ and it's not.

He's everywhere.

He's at the opening of Saint Mungo's new ward and the Potioneers' Gala and even at the Ministry's functions, impeccably dressed, impeccably mannered, charming to the core.

"Rabastan Lestrange," she hears him introducing himself to a woman and when she gasps, shocked, he flutters a hand, as if shocked himself and says "No, of course not, not him. A relation from a disowned branch. Sad name coincidence," and the woman murmurs, "Of course, he's dead and you're too young," and she says "Enchanted to meet you," and by gods, she means it.

And why shouldn't she be when Rabastan _breathes_ to enchant?

…

 _("Why does he look so young?" Shacklebolt demands. "What went wrong?"_

 _The shaman's mean little eyes gleam even meaner. "It's the Old Magic's way, Minister. Brings them back pure as day."_

 _He cackles. It's a dirty sound as if he's throat is an iron pipe and his teeth are falling down on it from his mouth._

" _Maybe you'd understand it better if you stiff collar types hadn't done your damned best to squash it at every turn. Unless you need it." He sneers. "Serves you right, to be unable to pin anything on him. He's as clean as a new born angel even if the devil himself has a shop opened in his heart.")_

…

A year passes and he's society's new darling, the blinding pureblood scion of a house so long since dishonoured and so disturbingly rich people are falling all over themselves for a piece of him.

Two years and there he is, in a front page article, arm looped around Neville's shoulders, valiant Neville, courageous Neville, clueless, poor Neville who just smiles his easy, friendly, awkward smile. Rabastan's rictus in snake-like. Predatory.

It sends Hermione back in her nightmares.

It sends Hermione back into War.

...

Three years and she comes to work to find him in her office, between her parchments and her quills and her reforms, breathing in the air of all her hopes dashed by subpar funding and mediocrity.

"What are you doing here?" Hermione demands and he infuriates her, he infuriates her, he infuriates her, he says "I have a proposition for you."

She frowns, lets her bag fall on her chair and hooks her cloak maybe too neatly and when she finally turns to look him in the eye she says "Did you find more ways to drain us? I have to say I'm impressed."

It's not the first time they meet. He's always at the Ministry and he wants and wants and wants. A place in the Wizengamot, a job as a consultant in Potions Research, has his invitation for the French Delegation Gala got lost? He emanates cravings: for the spotlight, for importance, for power.

"We give in because we need him," Kingsley says but that's not true, Hermione knows, they give everything to him because he could say the truth and then he'd die and all would have been in vain and they'd still fall.

From power.

Rabastan always comes to her first. Not because _she_ has any say, no. According to him, he has a soft spot for how her feet tap in annoyance, how her lips thin in displeasure, how she fights just to inevitably give in. It's deranged but what it's not deranged about this?

"What is it you want this time?" she asks tiredly, resignedly. "The Unspeakables to come and sort your lingerie drawer?"

"That'll be nice but no." He has that smile, that smile that forms those creases around his mouth, those same creases that always form when she won't like what he has to say, and his prissy, scholarly tone is on.

"You know," he starts, "families like the Malfoys always make connections based on rot like lineage. Not the Lestranges. We've always worshipped advantage more than anything. Practicality."

She raises an eyebrow. "Is practicality why your brother married Bellatrix?"

"Regrettable, wasn't it?" Rabastan shakes his head. "I told him that just because you like to eat something at midnight doesn't mean you should put it at the breakfast table, too, but would he listen? No. _She_ was _interesting_. _He_ was _in love_. Rot. You marry with _respectability_. You marry with _the times_. Which brings me to why I'm here."

"You want us to find you a wife?" she asks shocked.

Rabastan scoffs. "Don't be ridiculous. I already found one." The creases deepen. Here it comes. "It's you."

…

It's a clash of wills in the end, between a woman who had kept another woman in a jar and a man who'd put a mask on and kept other men under the Cruciatus.

But, like most parts of this story, the winner doesn't matter when all it's said and done.

All that matters is power.

* * *

 _ **Believe it or not, it was going to be a love story. Halfway through, I realised this Rabastan just wasn't cut out for that.**_


End file.
